The Adult Education Movement

Extract

I have been interested in University Extension since 1915. But it was only a little over four years ago that circumstances combined to make a new scheme possible. Its success has been so astonishing—and the movement is destined to grow apace—that a brief explanation may be of general interest. It is hardly necessary to stress the importance of adult education for workers —and indeed for employers. It is absurd to suppose that men and women can be adequately equipped for life and for their social responsibilities while they are attending a primary school or are still in their teens. It is equally absurd to suppose that education teases when the boy or girl finally leaves school; the most influential part of education or miseducation continues through press, radio, cinema, and social intercourse. In our arithmetical democracy the real power lies ultimately not with the highly educated but with the mass of men and women with the minimum of formal education. I am not referring to technical training such as tradesmen receive; I mean education of human persons as such, particularly as regards social principles and current ideologies. Even for Catholics the Sunday sermon is not enough, nor even does the sodality suffice. What is required is a further education which will enter fully into men’s daily secular lives and deal with their responsibilities as citizens, as workers, as trade unionists. I think that we have now made a real beginning in Ireland. There are already over three hundred adult students, in ten centres, attached to University College, Cork; and next year, if we could cope with them, these numbers could be doubled.